The media is breathlessly reporting that “Bill Cosby Admitted To Drugging Women In 2005 Deposition,” the implication being that he gave women drugs without their knowledge to knock them unconscious and then have relations with them.

Only this isn’t what the 2005 deposition says.

First, let’s be clear: Cosby loves beautiful women, and they love him right back. Nothing wrong with that–unless you are the liberal media.

Question the source: the document was created by one of Bill Cosby’s accusers. It makes far-from-objective statements like “[Bill Cosby’s] testimony become [sic] more and more unbelievable” (page 20). We’re talking about one woman–one–not “women” plural. Even though the entire media uses the word “women,” on page 7, the witness−presumably, Bill Cosby−makes it clear he is referring to one “[w]oman, meaning T—–, and not women.” Few if any of the articles seem to point out this tiny detail.

Bill Cosby allegedly gave Quaaludes to a woman in 1976. Your friend, Google, says that Quaaludes became illegal in 1984. In the 1970’s, Quaaludes were legal, and popular. In the 1970’s, “‘Luding out’ where Quaaludes were taken with wine, became a popular college pastime.”

The lawyers and witness appear to be discussing the same woman when the narrator of the deposition−evidently a lawyer for one of the accusers−reveals that that woman, when she was 19, “met defendant who had sex with her after giving her Quaaludes” (page 14). The narrator chooses not to give us that woman’s exact quote−one can guess why−but the question is moot since the witness says, “That’s her statement. I don’t know.”

Worse, the narrator herself concedes that the aforementioned woman’s “statement was ambiguous about whether or not they continued to see each other or simply met again two years later”−you know, the way rape victims do.

It is here that the witness says, “She meets me back stage. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex.” This is the “admission.” But even though the media is having a field day with this statement, it could mean that she asked for Quaaludes and then they had consensual relations. Does anyone question Kurt Cobain or Keith Richards? How about the Beatles? Would Elvis be in trouble today? Do Dr. Cosby’s critics think that the expression “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” refers to three activities done in totally separate venues?

What won’t you find in the news reports about the deposition? That the aforementioned woman “states she spent a two-week period with Mr. Cosby at Lake Tahoe when she was 21” (page 16). Again, what rape victims do that? Oh, I forgot: there is no perfect mattress.

The anti-Cosby articles insist that none of the accusers are in it for the money, but the deposition reveals how false this is: The hostile lawyer asks, “Mr. Cosby, did you believe that T—— P—– would go to the press with her story when you sent her the money?”

The comedian comes out on page 20 when discussing a masseuse who claims she met Dr. Cosby when she was 25 but the hostile lawyer says, “27”: “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to say never happened. How do I know she was in a dream-like state? Isn’t that introspective?”

Page 26 discusses another accuser. The hostile lawyer concedes that the accuser said she “ended a month long consensual affair with the entertainer,” after which “he drugged her when she visited him before a performance in Denver.” That’s what the lawyer says. The article the lawyers are arguing over is by Nicole Egan of the Daily News. In what is apparently that article, the accuser recalls, “He [Cosby] was going to help us with our careers.” The article continues, “She saw Cosby the following day and they began an affair, she said. Soon, she said she fell in love.

“About six months into the relationship [not one month; emphasis ours], he bought her a plane ticket to New York, and they shared a romantic night together, she said. The next morning, he handed her a $100 bill and sent her to the local deli for bagels and cream cheese.

“When she returned to his home, laden with bagels, he abruptly told her to pack her bags and move into a nearby hotel, she said. She still has no idea why.

“Puzzled and upset, she checked into the hotel…”

Yeah, dumped women have no reason whatsoever to be hostile toward Dr. Cosby.

In summary, at no point in the purported deposition transcript does Bill Cosby admit to drugging women in order to rape them. But a dying newspaper industry seeking easy clicks can hide behind the fig leaf of Fallwell v. Flynt─newspapers can basically lie about public figures with impunity─rather than present confirmed facts.

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About Jonathan David Farley, D. Phil.

Jonathan David Farley has been a Visiting Professor of Mathematics at Caltech, a Visiting Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT, and a Visiting Scholar of the Department of Mathematics at Harvard University.